


Calyr

by Faiz



Category: The Strokes
Genre: Blood, Gen, Space AU, operations - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 06:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faiz/pseuds/Faiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never trust a planet that's out of your comfortable temperature zone.</p><p>You might lose a few fingers from it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calyr

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to personally thank the Muppets (2011) soundtrack for being the main music I listened to while writing this
> 
> (and a shoutout to splitdemonidentity and thislifeisonmyside for being my questionably willing consultants while I was writing this)

The universe was rarely kind to Julian. Especially right now. It pained Albert to have to be the one doing this, but at least he didn’t have Nikolai’s job of physically holding Julian down as he writhed in pain and shrieked as they continued the operation. It made him wish they could use the anesthesia, but no, it was too costly. That was only for the most extreme cases, and this wasn’t extreme. At least in a bounty hunter’s case, it wasn’t extreme as it could have been. Extreme was literally having to cut Julian open, and Albert was just glad it wasn’t that.

It had happened when they arrived on this small jungle-ridden planet. It seemed safe enough, but according to their sources, this had been where their bounty had run off to. They were pretty much all fine exiting off the ship, Nick’s face was flushed from the heat, but it was just bearable for him. To Albert and Nikolai, it just felt like a normal hot day on earth would be. And Fab was in paradise. He adored the scorching heat on his skin and almost immediately tore off his shirt in excitement of truly being behind all of the horrible cold planets they had been on previously. But Julian’s normal sickly pallor was replaced with hot flushed skin. It looked even worse than Nick’s. 

His eyes were unfocused, and he stumbled on the ground before crashing headlong into a tree and straight to the ground with a sickening crunch. The rest of the group panicked, and Nikolai was the quickest one to get to Julian and lift him straight off the ground with a grunt of effort. Albert leaned over to help, and he knew Nick and Fab would too, but Nikolai just shook his head and told them to go and catch their bounty. But while Fab and Nick followed the order, Albert refused and stood his ground. They stared at each other, almost like they were daring the other to try and say something. It was then that Nikolai sighed and allowed Albert to help carry the heavy Callistan boy back onto the ship.

“What are we going to do?” Albert asked, looking at Julian’s red face now covered in scratches as well. 

“I have an idea. Pick Julian up and follow me.” picking up Julian was a bit harder than it looked, but Albert managed it well enough to be able to slowly follow Nikolai to where their freezer was. 

It was emptied quickly of most of it’s contents, and Nikolai motioned for Albert to come nearer. “What are we doing?” he asked staring at the freezer.

“Help me shove him in. Mind his fingers though, some of them don’t look too good. But we need to get his temperature stabilized again before we do anything.”

“Shove him in? Nikolai, why the fuck would we--” 

Nikolai interrupted him. “He’s from a moon made out of rock and ice. He wasn’t made for heat. We should have thought of that before...But no matter. The freezer would be the quickest way to get his temperature back to normal.” 

Albert sighed, but complied. It felt awkward shoving their newest member of the crew into a freezer. It made him feel like some creepy murderer shoving a corpse into a freezer to hide the evidence. And it was true what Nikolai said, some of Julian’s fingers on his left hand were bending in directions that they should not be facing, and after getting Julian properly in was when Nikolai did as much as he could to stop the bleeding. They wouldn’t be able to do anything to his fingers until Julian wasn’t crammed inside a freezer.

“Hopefully he cools down quick enough.” Nikolai mumbled carefully closing the freezer door. “I didn’t like the look of where he ended up face planting. I don’t want him to get an infection.”

Albert hadn’t even thought of that, but thinking back to the angry red marks on Julian’s face and the bleeding mess of his broken fingers just made Albert panic even more. “Should...should I go go get y’know...stuff ready just in case?”

They both looked at each other already knowing the answer to the question. Despite really wanting it not to happen, the chances were extremely high. Such was the life of a bounty hunter. If you weren’t at least near the top of the tier you’d probably end up being more metal than human by the end of your already incredibly shortened lifespan. And they could already tell Julian had some...issues. He had fake eyes, and who knows what else underneath his skin that even he may not be aware of. Albert quickly bowed himself out towards what was essentially their ‘sick bay’ and where most of their operations took place to search for what he needed. If he remembered correctly, the fingers that didn’t look to good were his ring finger, his middle finger, and his pinky. 

He rummaged around the ‘small body parts’ compartment and managed to find fingers close enough to those sizes. They seemed to be in good enough shape, although he wasn’t sure how well they’d fit with Julian’s hand. They didn’t really have the money to buy new ones, even if they did catch the bounty today. Suddenly having an entirely new person on their ship had put a definite strain on their funds, and it’d take quite a bit of money pinching before they were back to living how they were before (which granted, wasn’t much better than now). He also pulled out some of his basic operating equipment before going back to the freezer where Nikolai was frowning in front of the open freezer. 

“We might have to end up operating sooner than we thought.” he mumbled. 

“What? Why?” Albert looked worried at Nikolai. 

“I sent a message to the other two to be careful. There’s something about this damn place. Infection shouldn’t have spread this quickly.” he pointed out Julian’s left hand.

Albert’s mouth was agape. They were still bent uncomfortably, but from the cuts Albert could see that those fingers were quickly becoming infected. Red lines were traveling down from his pale skin. He helped Nikolai remove Julian from the freezer and Nikolai nodded his head at Albert telling him to go ahead to the sick bay again. Albert noted that Julian’s temperature had dropped quite a bit, and his face was returning to his original pallor. His cheeks were still stained a pale red, and had red marks that were luckily not infected. He had to be thankful that Julian had a thick skull or else he could have gotten injured worse. 

When he set Julian down on the operating table, Nikolai came in with a few ice packs that he piled on top of one another to create a makeshift pillow for Julian’s head. He examined Julian’s hand for a few moments and looked up at Albert. 

“We might need a plate for his hand too. It’s starting to spread. I want to save at least the two fingers that aren’t infected…” 

Albert nodded, choosing a plate of metal that would fit the part of Julian’s hand where the infected fingers were. Nikolai leaned over and held down both of Julian’s arms. He may be passed out now, but they were positive the boy was going to wake up soon enough and cause a commotion. That was the part Albert hated the most, and he didn’t even want to think about how that would sound like as he got together all the tools and the mechanical fingers and set them by Julian’s hand. He hesitated touching Julian’s skin. He knew as soon as the scalpel cut Julian’s skin he’d wake up. It always happened like this. 

It was a creepy thing to know. Knowing how all your friends sounded like when they screamed in agony from something you had to do. The occasional anesthesia wasn’t only relief for them, but for himself too. He hovered over the skin with the scalpel again, and hesitated.

“Albert.” Nikolai said sternly. “If you don’t do anything now, then Julian will be in even more pain later.”

Albert nodded, and took a deep breath before plunging the scalpel into Julian’s flesh. 

The effect was immediate. Julian’s eyes sprung open and he let out a terrible shriek of pain. His body tensed and Nikolai had to pin him down even harder as Albert quickly worked on Julian’s hand. Blood was spilling onto his luckily gloved hands. The smell of copper hit his nostrils quickly, and he wished he could shut his eyes and cover his ears, but he had to continue. He winced as the ligament keeping Julian’s finger attached to his hand tore and his finger came off. Well, that was one…

He grabbed a cloth and wiped away the blood and wrapped it bandages to stop the flow of blood so he could get to the other fingers. Julian was squirming less now, and Albert chanced a few seconds to glance up to see Julian staring unfocused at Nikolai with a dopey look on his face as he just let out a continuous sound of ‘aaaaaaaaaa’ while Nikolai held him down. Getting the other two fingers off of Julian was the easy part. Now, was the arduous task of putting the robotic fingers and connecting it to his fingers and placing the metal plate onto Julian’s hand. This could take a long time. It seems like the infection didn’t have a chance to spread to far, so part of Julian’s hand would be saved.

Both he and Nikolai took a deep breath, and Albert reached over to grab the first finger. The room stank with sweat and blood, and Albert had an itch on his nose that he couldn’t scratch. But Julian had finally passed out again, and he needed to get this done to make sure the guy was going to be okay.

“Don’t worry Julian...You’re going to be just fine…” He began to unbandage one of Julian’s fingers.

The room smelled like copper and bleach when they were finally done. Nikolai had moved Julian to one of the beds and Albert was left to clean off the table where they had done the entire operation and to...dispose of Julian’s fingers. He shivered slightly at that. Nikolai was carefully removing Julian’s bloodstained clothing and Nick entered the room with more ice packs.

They must have gotten back while they were operating...Albert watched them create a pillow out of the ice packs and put another on Julian’s forehead. Nick, Albert noted, was still extremely red-faced from the heat. It probably wasn’t a good idea for Nick to have gone out either, but it was a bit late for that. Nick noticed him and smiled, walking over. 

“Hey, I’ll finish cleaning. You need to change.” 

Albert raised his eyebrow before looking down and realized that his shirt was indeed stained with blood splatters. He nodded gratefully to Nick and nearly walked off before he realized he had forgotten to ask Nick if they had gotten the bounty. He was stopped mid sentence by Nick who just nodded.

“Don’t worry, Fab is taking care of him in the hold. Nabbing him was the easy part, but this planet is hell. Let’s never come back here.”

“What’s this place even called?” Albert asked.

Nick shrugged. “The guy we caught called it ‘Calyr’. Don’t know if it’s the official name either. He didn’t speak much English.” Nick shoved him playfully. “Okay, enough talking. Go get dressed in something sorta clean. If Julian wakes up we’ll let you know.”

Albert let out a sigh of relief and nodded. He needed clean clothes, and a shower. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to wash away the smell of blood. As he walked out, he looked back to see where Julian was still unconscious. Nikolai was still hovering over him, making sure he was okay in his own strange, caring way. Sometimes Nikolai was really good at making it seem like he had true emotions, even with his artificial heart. Julian looked peaceful, if not paler than normal. It was better than hearing him screaming, that’s for sure. And his left hand was draped across his chest, with the metal shining brightly and catching the light. The smell was too much for him now though, he had to leave the room. So he finally turned and walked down the hall towards the showers. 

When he got out, Fab passed by him, still shirtless and clearly heading to the sick bay. “Hey! Niko said that Julian woke up!” He grinned widely, and Albert joined him walking down to the bay while he dried his hair with a towel.

Sure enough when they entered the room, Julian was propped up on some pillows and he was bending and staring in awe at his new fingers. He also had some bandages on his forehead and one going across the bridge of his nose from his face plant into the tree. Nevertheless, Julian smiled at Albert and held up his hand like a child with a new toy. 

“Look! My hand’s all robotic! It hurts like a bitch, but I can move them and everything!”

“Yep...Not a perfect fit, but good enough, right?” Albert asked, carefully taking Julian’s hand and examining his own work. Julian’s ring finger was too long, and his pinky a bit shorter than normal. But they seemed to be working just fine.

“What happened, anyways? I blanked out for a lot of it.” Julian asked curiously, leaning on Fab slightly who had draped his arm over Julian’s shoulders.

“Freaky shit, dude.” Nick said, lying down at the end of Julian’s bed and looking up at them. “This planet is weird. I definitely got really woozy by the end of it too, and not just because of the heat, even Fab was feeling weird too.”

“The planet is still fairly uncharted.” Nikolai pointed out, sitting down next to Julian on the bed. “We’ll have to tell this all to Ryan.”

“So I passed out?” Julian asked. “I remember it being really fucking hot.”

“Right into a tree.” Albert nodded. “We had to drag you back inside and shove you in the freezer. Then we saw your hand had an infection and we had to do something quick. And, well, that’s why you have your shiny robot fingers.”

“Whoa...That’s pretty rad.” Julian said. “You...You can let go of my hand now, Al.” 

“Huh? Oh...right.” Albert let go of Julian’s hand and watched him examine his own fingers again.

“How long is it gonna hurt?”

“Not too long, we just have to make sure your body responds well to it. Then you’ll be fit to pilot us again.” 

“Heh, Jules, look. We match now.” Nick held up his own hands towards Julian, showing him the two pinkies, ring finger, and thumb that Nick had missing. “But I have one more!” 

When Julian immediately snorted into breathy laughter, everything was pretty much solidified as being okay. Nikolai excused himself, saying that he needed to call Ryan and let him know of what happened, and then Julian, Fab, and Nick all managed to fall asleep on the same bed at the same time. Albert had no clue how long he just sat there after they fell asleep until he jumped at the sound of someone saying his name. Nikolai was leaning against the sickbay door with a blank expression on his face.

“You look like a lovestruck fool, Albert.”

Albert rolled his eyes and stood up from his chair, stretching and yawning before walking over to Nikolai and thumping him on the shoulder. “And how would you know, you heartless bastard?”

“I don’t need emotions to see everyone else's. You’ve got it bad.”

“Shut up.” They both stared at each other. “Well...We should get to bed. You’ve piloted us before, you can get us back to drop off our bounty and then go to Cenciel to meet up with Ryan. 

Albert strode past Nikolai, but still managed to catch the muttering of “Whatever, you lovesick idiot.”

Albert shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and trying to ignore the visions of a certain Callistan out of his head.


End file.
